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1. This past month I've been teaching an acting class for homeschoolers, using Shakespeare as our texts. Our final project was Act 3 Scene 4 from Macbeth, the banquet scene in which Banquo's ghost shows up and puts a crimp in Macbeth's social life. I was working with my Macbeth, talking about how I wanted him to slam down his goblet when he saw the ghost. "Avaunt! Quit my sight!' I bellowed at the ghost, and banged the goblet on the table. The stem shattered on impact, gouging my finger deeply. The actors around the table took one look at the blood and glass all over my hand, and did exactly what their characters were supposed to do: screamed and jumped back from the table. In our performance today, that moment was perhaps the crispest bit of the whole scene -- apparently a little blood teaches more than hours of direction.
2. Butterfly bandages are awesome at closing gaping cuts.
3. Speaking of blood, Macbeth is a show that requires buckets of gore. We needed to smear the face of the murderer with blood, and douse Banquo's head (my favorite line of our scene was Macbeth shouting at the ghost, "Thou can'st not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me!"). I tried working off this recipe for blood, using the "gouts and smears" formula, but the chocolate syrup was just too brown to overcome with red food coloring. I must say, though, that my skin felt nice and soft after I rinsed a test smear off my face. For performance, we ended up using a some professional stage blood that I'd unearthed from my college stage makeup kit. The stuff was ten years old, but it looked most convincingly fresh dripping down Banquo's face.
4. After the Goblet Incident, Darwin ventured out to Target looking for some unbreakable goblets, and returned with these impressive plastic specimens.
Not only were all fingers safe during performance, but we can use them to replace all the broken wine glasses at our house.5. Speaking of drama and children: the three-year-old has recently discovered her inner drama queen. We've seen a number of hissy fits lately -- fits that are, I might add, immediately discouraged. The other night, she was angry at Darwin about something before family prayers. We all knelt down, and he asked her to lead a Hail Mary, reasoning that it might soften her mood to do something constructive. She complied, and pronounced the prayer in an unusually clear voice, right up to "...blessed is the fruit of your womb...". Then, looking up at Darwin with a glint in her eye, she finished up: "Ugly."*
*She had to sit on the couch while everyone else went upstairs to get ready for bed, and when Darwin came down to get her, she was suitably and tearfully contrite and declared that she was ready to pray now, Daddy.
6. Speaking of children: I have rarely seen a child with so little hair as Jack. A friend of mine just had a baby five weeks early. Her baby, only 5 lbs. 8 oz., was born with more hair than Jack has now.
You can see Jack's hair, if the light is just so. Darwin says, "Jack's hair is still very... subtle."
7. My sister tells me that her cell ringtone for all the rest of her family is "You're So Vain". Personally, I don't think that song captures my unique essence.
11 comments:
My sister's hair looked just like Jack's when she was a baby.
Good news: she now has a gorgeous full head of hair. Bad news: it didn't really come in until well into her 3rd year. You may have to wait a while. At least he's a boy. My poor parents had to deal with a girl with "subtle" hair.
None of the babies in my family had hair, before my sister's little boy....
Elf's family has babies with lots of hair, though, so we're taking bets.
Butterfly bandages saved my childhood; none of us kids ever went to the hospital for stitches, yet the only notable scar is the one where my sister kept picking loose the bandages.
Bernadette's at five months and still looks like she's ready for boot camp, so she might have Jack beat.
"...blessed is the fruit of your womb...". Then, looking up at Darwin with a glint in her eye, she finished up: "Ugly."
Oh, that is just too cute. Of course, one would never say that to the child, but it's one for the memory album, for sure. Especially if she gets engaged to a good Catholic boy ... heh heh heh.
No worries, hair is overrated anyway...
A fun read, as always! Hope your finger is feeling better.
OUCH! Hope your finger is better!
Our Beth was two years old before she had hair and now she has gorgeous curly blond hair.
Well, Darwin was a bald baby and so were both of his parents. Count yourself lucky that the girls weren't bald too!
Big Girl barely had enough hair to pull into two little ponytails for her two-year portrait. And it was thin.
Now, she's going on 11 (don't ask me how THAT happened!), and she's got hair so thick she frequently adorns our pool with bubbles, a veritable feast for algae. It's gorgeous, and she prefers us to chop it all off in the summers.
I hardly had any hair as a baby (my hair is blond, thin, and fine). Seriously, I think not having to cut a boy's hair until he's three or so would be ideal. My 2 1/2 year old son has needed four haircuts so far, all done by me. It has not been fun. Treasure that bald head!
--Elizabeth B.
My 22 year old looked like that @ 2. It grew & SHE eventually shaved it off at 18.
Kids. Go figure!
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